Undoubtedly, since the Glazer family handed over the club to Jim Ratcliffe and his team, they have made several mistakes. Among them are two major blunders that Sir Jim himself would probably acknowledge.
The first mistake was the decision to extend Erik ten Hag’s contract in the summer of 2024 and grant him £200 million for transfers.
Some argue that this error stemmed from the second misstep: the short-lived appointment of Dan Ashworth.
Attempts to bring in Thomas Tuchel as Ten Hag’s successor ended in failure. Sources close to the German, who now manages the England national team, described a disastrous attempt to recruit a top-tier coach.
The two sides held four interviews, during which Tuchel was asked questions that he deemed irrelevant. In the end, the two parties parted ways abruptly, without even a formal job offer being tabled.
Manchester United also considered several other candidates at the time, including Thomas Frank (current Tottenham Hotspur manager), Roberto De Zerbi (then Brighton & Hove Albion boss, now in charge of Marseille), and Kieran McKenna (one of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s former assistants, who was managing Ipswich Town back then).
These rumors were undoubtedly humiliating for Ten Hag. After winning the FA Cup final against Manchester City, as he walked through the mixed zone, he raised his hand and waved, silently saying "goodbye". No one expected him to return to Manchester, least of all himself.
"They were scrambling around like headless chickens, trying to find a new manager," a source explained. “It was a huge mistake. They should have gone for Ruben Amorim then, but Dan Ashworth opposed it.”
The club has also made a series of other personnel hires recently, including poaching Amish Manek from Brentford to serve as Director of Football Operations, Mark Armstrong from Paris Saint-Germain as Chief Commercial Officer, Mike Sansoni from Mercedes F1 as Director of Data, and Kirsten Furber from Channel 4 as Director of People.
Amorim has made an impressive off-field impact in his key role at the club and is well-liked by the senior management. Unfortunately, on the pitch, the team’s performances have been mostly disappointing.
At times, his outspoken personality has been hard for some within the club to stomach. Amorim pulls no punches, but he is not the only one who speaks his mind without filter. Few are as blunt as Jim Ratcliffe. Somehow, Manchester United has gone from having owners in the Glazer family who never said a word, to a minority shareholder who never shuts up.
When asked about this, a source close to Ratcliffe said: “Jim feels like he owes a lot of people favors. He doesn’t like to say 'no'.”
Currently, a book chronicling his tenure at Manchester United, commissioned by Ratcliffe, is still in the works, but there are now doubts over whether it will ever see the light of day.
Of course, if the team’s results continue to stagnate, his public promise to back Amorim for the next three years will be meaningless.
Some of his other remarks have also had disastrous consequences. Talking about further job cuts this year, Ratcliffe claimed he had no choice because the club was on the verge of bankruptcy before Christmas. This was clearly a lie, and Manchester United’s big-money signings in the summer transfer window further undermined his claims.
But Ratcliffe’s world is not about optics, social media reactions, or opinion polls—it is about results. Only when he leads the club to success will all his efforts be worthwhile. Otherwise, he will be mostly remembered for the notoriety of hiking ticket prices, cutting disabled parking spaces, and laying off hundreds of Manchester locals.
The future of the stadium remains uncertain and is likely to be one of the key factors determining the success or failure of the Ratcliffe era.
His claim to build a "Northern Wembley" sounds rather hypocritical. Even Northern football fans who do not support Manchester United may find this insulting and patronizing.
Opinions on the Ratcliffe regime remain divided. Under the leadership of Ineos, Manchester United has not ushered in a new dawn so much as a false vision of a better future.
Meanwhile, the Glazer family still holds a firm grip on the club’s real power. Any major decision—including player recruitment and sales—must be approved by Joel Glazer.
Manchester United remains vulnerable to the whims of other powerful forces. If the Glazer family decides to sell their shares, under the terms of their agreement with Ratcliffe, he will also have to sell his stake. This undoubtedly adds another layer of uncertainty.
Can Ratcliffe pull it off? He seems eager to get results quickly. He gives the impression that he is just as fed up with Manchester United’s mediocrity as the fans are.
This is not the first time Manchester United has undergone a rebuild. After the tragedy of the 1958 Munich Air Disaster, they rose again to become the greatest club in world football, driven by both passion and excellence.
This is the club of Sir Matt Busby, Sir Bobby Charlton, George Best, and Denis Law. This is the club of Sir Alex Ferguson, Roy Keane, Peter Schmeichel, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, and the Neville brothers.
This is a giant of a club, a team of champions. With its size, fanbase, and financial resources, Manchester United should be at the top of the Premier League, competing for the Champions League title every season.
Yet the litany of mistakes made by the club ranks as one of the most egregious failures in modern football history.
Once the dominant force in English football, the club has fallen to such depths. While it is easy to blame the Glazers’ greed, and the ideological and practical bankruptcy of their ownership, the architects of the club’s years of suffering extend far beyond the American family—encompassing a host of losers and opportunists.
So many people have inflicted so much damage for so long that English football’s ailing giant still lies bedridden, unable to rise again.
